Exile (American band) 1970s - First chart success What did Exile do in the 1970"s? They shortened their name to Exile in 1973 DId they release any albums that year? released their eponymous debut album through Wooden Nickel Records Was the album successful? Singles released from the album proved unsuccessful, What was some of the names of Exiles singles? In 1977, the band released the single "Try it On
Did they release any songs that was top charters?
Did the band Exile release any songs that topped the charts?
The band changed musical styles throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. They shortened their name to Exile in 1973 and released their eponymous debut album through Wooden Nickel Records that same year. Singles released from the album proved unsuccessful, and it would be a good five years before the band released a full-length follow-up album.  In 1977, the band released the single "Try it On" on Atco Records, and it became a minor hit. The following year, Mike Chapman, an Australian who had established himself as a record producer in the UK, came to the United States in search of an experienced group who wrote their own material. Chapman heard an Exile demo and went to their next concert. Chapman evidently enjoyed what he saw. He and Exile decided to collaborate and together they produced the Mixed Emotions album on Warner/Curb Records. The first single release from that album was Kiss You All Over. The single reached Billboard's Top 40 on 5 August 1978. It remained on the chart for seventeen weeks and was No. 1 for four weeks in September. It was a best-seller for six months.  Their follow up single, "You Thrill Me," also from the Mixed Emotions LP did not fare as well, although it did reach the Top 40 for one week on 3 February 1979. The band toured with Aerosmith, Heart, Dave Mason, Boston, Seals & Crofts and other hot pop acts of the late seventies throughout the United States, Europe and Africa.  All There Is, the group's second Warner Bros. Records album, recorded a year later with a distinct disco beat, yielded a foreign hit, "The Part Of Me That Needs You Most." This single did particularly well in Europe and South Africa. Don't Leave Me This Way, their third album, produced by Peter Coleman, yielded two more singles, "Take Me Down" and "Smooth Sailing." Once again, it did well in Europe and South Africa although their popularity in the United States waned.  Numerous personnel changes took place in 1979. Perhaps most significantly, Stokley would leave the group that year, forcing remaining members guitarist/vocalist J.P. Pennington, keyboardist Buzz Cornelison, keyboardist/vocalist Marlon Hargis, bassist/vocalist Sonny Lemaire and drummers Steve Goetzman and Gary Freeman to search for a new lead singer. A young singer, Les Taylor, accepted an invitation to join the group and shared lead vocal duties with Pennington. By the early 1980s, other lineup changes took place, including the exit of original member Buzz Cornelison, plus keyboardist Mark Gray, who co-wrote "The Closer You Get" and "Take Me Down", both of which became hits for the group Alabama, played a short stint from 1980 to 1982. CANNOTANSWER
The first single release from that album was Kiss You All Over. The single reached Billboard's Top 40
Exile is an American band originally formed in 1963. In the 1970s, they were known as a rock band that had a major hit single with "Kiss You All Over" in 1978. After several lineup changes, the band was re-launched as a country act that achieved additional success in the 1980s and '90s. J.P. Pennington is the only current member of the band remaining from its early days.

Career

Early years 
The origins of Exile were with a high school band in Richmond, Kentucky, called the Fascinations, which featured singer Jimmy Stokley. In 1963, the Fascinations merged with another local band and became Jimmy Stokley and the Exiles, with singer/guitarist J.P. Pennington, then age 14, joining a short time later. They toured regionally with the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars in 1965. Their name was later shortened to The Exiles, apparently to show support for Cuban refugees.

After high school, the band moved to Lexington, Kentucky, and recorded several singles for small labels between 1968 and 1973. In 1973 the name was shortened again to Exile, with Stokley on lead vocals, Pennington on vocals and guitar, Buzz Cornelison on keyboards, Kenny Weir on bass, and Bobby Johns on drums. This version of the band released a self-titled album on Wooden Nickel Records in 1973. They toured regionally for the next several years and had a minor pop hit with "Try It On" in 1977.

Late 1970s pop success 
In 1978, Exile consisted of Stokley, Pennington, and Cornelison, plus second keyboardist Marlon Hargis, bassist Sonny LeMaire, and drummer Steve Goetzman. This lineup signed with Warner Brothers and released the album Mixed Emotions. The disco-influenced single "Kiss You All Over", written by the album's producer Mike Chapman and his songwriting partner Nicky Chinn, topped the American singles chart for four weeks and also reached the top ten in a dozen European countries. The song attracted some controversy for its risqué lyrics, while Stokley gained media attention as a flamboyant and charismatic frontman.

The success of "Kiss You All Over" resulted in invitations for Exile to tour with Heart, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, and other leading rock acts of the period. The follow-up album All There Is yielded the minor hit single "The Part of Me That Needs You Most", which reached the top ten in South Africa and New Zealand in 1979.

Transition to country music 
Jimmy Stokley left the band in 1980 and was replaced by Les Taylor prior to recording sessions for the band's next album, Don't Leave Me this Way. Stokley died at age 41 on August 13, 1985 due to complications from hepatitis, and was later inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame with a speech by J.P. Pennington. Another longtime member, keyboardist Buzz Cornelison, also departed in the early 1980s. Meanwhile, in 1981, the band released their final album under the Warner Brothers label, Heart and Soul, featuring their original recording of the Chapman/Chinn-penned title track, which would become a big hit for Huey Lewis and the News several years later.  Exile's version was released as a single but failed to crack the Hot 100.

At this point, under the leadership of Pennington, Exile was revamped as a country band with a southern rock flavor. This version of the band signed with Epic Records in 1983 and had a top 40 country single with their first Epic release, "High Cost of Leaving". Some of their songs were covered by other country artists, including Janie Fricke and Alabama, who would turn Exile's "The Closer You Get" (from their 1980 album Don't Leave Me This Way) into a #1 Country & Western single in 1983.  Starting in 1983, Exile had three consecutive top ten albums on the Billboard Country Albums chart (Exile, Kentucky Hearts, and Hang On to Your Heart, with the second of those reaching number one), and from 1983 to 1987 ten out of eleven singles reached number one on the Billboard Country Singles chart, making them one of the biggest country artists of the decade. They also received thirteen award nominations from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association.

Pennington and Taylor left the band in 1990, leaving it with no remaining members from its rock period. A new lineup featuring singer/guitarist Paul Martin signed with Arista Records and scored some more country hit singles, but they were dropped by Arista after the 1991 album Justice and disbanded in 1993. Twenty-one former members gathered for a farewell concert at the Grand Ole Opry.

Reformation 
After leaving Exile in 1990, J.P. Pennington and Les Taylor both signed solo deals and achieved minor hit singles on the U.S. country charts. Pennington and Taylor performed together on stage in 1995 and decided to resurrect the Exile name. The new version of the band, led by Pennington and Taylor with a shifting cast of sidemen, continued to tour the nostalgia circuit. Since the 1990s the group has released several live albums, plus the new album Wrapped Up in Your Arms for Christmas in 2016.

Discography

Studio albums
 Exile (1973)
 Stage Pass (1978)
 Mixed Emotions (1978)
 All There Is (1979)
 Don't Leave Me This Way / Keeping It Country (1980)
 Heart and Soul (1981)
 Exile (1983)
 Kentucky Hearts (1984)
 Hang On to Your Heart (1985)
 Shelter from the Night (1987)
 Still Standing (1990)
 Justice (1991)
 Wrapped Up In Your Arms for Christmas (2016)

References

Bibliography
 Eve Nicole Lemaire,  Life in Exile: A Journey Home, (2013),  CreateSpace Independent Publishing. 
 Randy Westbrook, 50 Years of Exile (2013), Acclaim Press.

External links
 
 

American country rock groups
American soft rock music groups
Arista Nashville artists
Musical groups established in 1963
Rock music groups from Kentucky
Warner Records artists
1963 establishments in Kentucky
Epic Records artists
Country music groups from Kentucky
Lightnin' Hopkins (re-released as The Roots of Lightnin' Hopkins) is an album by blues musician Lightnin' Hopkins, recorded in 1959 and released on the Folkways label. The album was first released around the time that the book The Country Blues came out and was an instant success. It gave Hopkin's career a new lease on life.

Reception

AllMusic reviewer Thom Owens stated: "Upon its initial release, it was a pivotal part of the blues revival and helped re-spark interest in Hopkins. Before it was recorded, the bluesman had disappeared from sight; after a great deal of searching, Sam Charters found Hopkins in a rented one-room apartment in Houston. Persuading Lightnin' with a bottle of gin, Charters convinced Hopkins to record ten songs in that room, using only one microphone. The resulting record was one of the greatest albums in Hopkins' catalog, a skeletal record that is absolutely naked in its loneliness and haunting in its despair. These unvarnished performances arguably capture the essence of Lightnin' Hopkins better than any of his other recordings, and it is certainly one of the landmarks of the late-'50s/early-'60s blues revival".
The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings awarded the album three stars stating "'Exciting' may not be the word everyone would choose to describe this intimate, unplugged performance, but it was greeted on its original release with considerable enthusiasm, a response moulded by interpretation of the blues as folk music, suspicion of electric guitars, and other views current in the '50s and '60s among the sort of people who bought Folkways albums. It remains an estimable record".

Re-release

The album was released in the UK by Verve Folkways as VLP 5003 (mono) and SVLP 5003 (stereo) in 1965 as The Roots of Lightnin' Hopkins and re-released in 1972 by Transatlantic Records (XTRA 1127). In 1990, it was re-released on CD under the title Lightnin' Hopkins by Smithsonian/Folkways (SF 40019), and distributed by Rounder Records. The CD was produced by Matt Walters, remastered by Doug Sax and Alan Yoshida at The Mastering Lab in Hollywood, California, and printed in Canada. As cover design the original Folkways LP's artwork by Ronald Clyne with a photograph taken by Samuel B. Charters was used. Charters also wrote the sleeve notes for the CD at the Mansfield Centre, Conn. 1990.

Track listing
All compositions by Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins except where noted
 "Penitentiary Blues" (Traditional) – 2:45
 "Bad Luck and Trouble" (Hopkins, Mack McCormick) – 3:40
 "Come Go Home With Me" (Hopkins, McCormick) – 3:45
 "Trouble Stay 'Way from My Door" – 4:00
 "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" (Blind Lemon Jefferson) – 2:05
 "Goin' Back to Florida" – 3:10
 "Reminiscenses of Blind Lemon" – 2:10
 "Fan It" – 2:40
 "Tell Me, Baby" – 2:30
 "She's Mine" – 4:10

Personnel

Performance
Lightnin' Hopkins – guitar, vocals

Production
 Samuel Charters – supervision, engineer

References

Lightnin' Hopkins albums
1959 albums
Folkways Records albums The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier is the 1968 debut album from American folk and soul performer Terry Callier, released on Prestige Records. The album has received positive reviews from critics.

Recording and release
Callier started recording as a teenager for Chess Records in 1962 but did not record an album for the first two years he was a professional musician. The album was recorded by Samuel Charters, who courted Callier to come to Prestige in 1964 but after the sessions, he ran off to Mexico, delaying the actual album release from 1965 to 1968. Callier did not even know the album was released until his brother saw it for sale in a book store. Craft Recordings released a 50thanniversary edition on November 2, 2018.

Critical reception
The editorial staff of AllMusic Guide gave the release four out of five stars, with Jason Ankeny writing that the album is not Callier's best but "it's his most timeless and inviting". Remarking on the 50thanniversary edition, Charles Donovan of PopMatters calls the original "a terrific album" and the re-release "stunning".

Track listing
All songs are traditional compositions, except where noted
"900 Miles"– 5:05
"Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be"– 2:50
"Johnny Be Gay If You Can Be"– 4:20
"Cotton Eyed Joe"– 5:25
"It's About Time" (Rent Foreman, Lydia Wood)– 3:25
"Promenade in Green"– 4:00
"Spin, Spin, Spin" (Foreman)– 3:05
"I'm a Drifter" (Travis Edmonson)– 8:50

2018 bonus tracks
"Jack O’Diamonds"
"Golden Apples of the Sun"
"Promenade in Green" (Take 1)
"Be My Woman" (Take 1)
"900 Miles" (Take 1)
"It’s About Time" (Take 2)
"Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be" (Take 2)

Personnel
Terry Callier– guitar, vocals
Terbour Attenborough– upright bass
Paul Blakemore– mastering on anniversary edition
Samuel Charters– production
Ray Flerlage– photography
Rent Foreman– liner notes
Ryan Jebavy– editing on anniversary edition
Sage LaMonica– design on anniversary edition
Chris Popham– design
Don Schlitten– design
John Tweedle– upright bass
Jason P. Woodbury– liner notes in anniversary edition
Mason Williams– production on anniversary edition

References

External links

Entry at Rate Your Music

1968 debut albums
Albums produced by Samuel Charters
Prestige Records albums
Terry Callier albums